Harry’s lawyer tells U.K. court Daily Mail complicit in unlawful acts

REUTERS/TOBY MELVILLE

Britain’s Prince Harry arrives to attend the start of the nine-week trial lawsuit against Associated Newspapers, publisher of the Daily Mail, which he and others are suing over allegations of privacy breaches dating back 30 years, at the High Court in London, Britain.

LONDON, >> Prince Harry, Elton John and other public figures were victims of systematic phone hacking and other unlawful acts by Britain’s powerful Daily Mail, their lawyer said on Monday as the trial of their high-profile privacy case against the publisher began.

The British royal and six other claimants accuse the Mail’s publisher Associated Newspapers of unlawful behavior violating their privacy from 1993 until 2011 and beyond, in a civil case with high stakes for the claimants and media alike.

Harry, 41, who arrived smiling and waving, said in a witness statement quoted by lawyers that it was “disturbing to feel that my every move, thought or feeling was being tracked and monitored just for the Mail to make money out of it.”

Associated, however, calls the allegations “preposterous smears,” saying their journalists had legitimate sources for information, including celebrities’ “leaky” social circles.

The publisher also alleges the litigation is part of a coordinated conspiracy by a wealthy group driven by personal animosity towards the media.

The nine-week trial will not just put reputations on the line, in a case with legal costs running to tens of millions of pounds, but could open up a new front in long-running litigation over the practices of the British press.

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Harry’s mission against press

Harry, singer John and the other claimants – John’s husband David Furnish, actors Liz Hurley and Sadie Frost, anti-racism campaigner Doreen Lawrence and former lawmaker Simon Hughes – will argue investigators routinely obtained material unlawfully.

Harry, Hurley, Frost and Hughes attended the trial’s first day on Monday, with John, Furnish and Lawrence following online.

Their lawyer David Sherborne said there was “clear, systematic and sustained use of unlawful information gathering,” including hacking voicemail messages, bugging landlines and obtaining private information by deception, known as “blagging.”

Harry, who has long blamed the press for the death of his mother in a Paris car crash in 1997 as her vehicle sped away from paparazzi, was quoted by his lawyers as saying the practices drove him “paranoid beyond belief.”

Examples cited included finding out precise travel plans of Harry’s former girlfriend Chelsy Davy and a report about “private and intimate conversations” between Harry and his elder brother Prince William about images of their dead mother.

Associated says sources legitimate, blames friends

Associated’s titles had not previously been embroiled in the phone hacking scandal, which has long dogged the British press, until this case was filed in 2022.

Current and former senior editors and journalists are among those allegedly involved in wrongdoing while at Associated, including Victoria Newton, the current editor of Rupert Murdoch’s tabloid the Sun.

Associated’s lawyers say articles written by Newton, who is not giving evidence, were “legitimately sourced.” News UK, a subsidiary of Murdoch’s News Corp, did not respond to a request for comment.

Given Associated’s long-standing denials, most notably by former Daily Mail editor Paul Dacre at a public inquiry a decade ago, any adverse findings would be a “catastrophe” for the publisher, Sherborne said.

But Associated says it had legitimate means of obtaining information, including through press officers or publicists and from the social circles of claimants including Harry and John regularly leaked to the press.

The publisher also says evidence from former private detectives is untrustworthy and some evidence was obtained “through financial inducements and threats.”

For Harry, the trial is the final installment of his legal war on the British tabloids, having said it was his mission to clear up the press and hold those in senior positions to account.

He has already successfully sued Mirror Group Newspapers (MGN) for damages, while he won an apology and admission of some wrongdoing by Murdoch’s British newspaper arm which settled ahead of a trial a year ago.

The prince became the first British royal to appear in a witness box in 130 years in 2023 during the MGN trial. He is expected to give evidence against Associated on Thursday.

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